


do you feel it?

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding Over Science And Realising That You Have Accidentally Ruined Your Life, Drug Addiction, Gen, Gray-Aromantic Wendy, Minor Original Character(s), gore mentions, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7342459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You shove your pills down your throat as Stanley says, in a voice filled with far too many emotions for you to clearly identify, “Not around the kids.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	do you feel it?

Okay, so it starts like this.

 

You’re cutting down a tree. That’s a pretty normal thing in your family. I mean, it’s what your family does. You cut down trees and use the wood for building and burning and whatever, then the dryads plant some new ones and check you out, and you check them out. It’s pretty sweet, to be honest, because the dryads are damn cute. And right now, one of them is yelling for help.

 

Huh.

 

Your leg is trapped under the tree.

 

You get the urge to scream, but instead you bite your knuckle hard enough to draw blood. One of the dryads, the tall one with the dark green pixie cut, takes your hand away from your mouth and replaces it with a leaf that she had grabbed from her flax-woven belt. She lets you grip her bony hand until your father arrives, and then she helps him lift the tree up off of your leg. Two of the younger dryads help you crawl out from underneath and your father drops the tree in order to pick you up and carry you through the thick underbrush to the edge of the forest where an ambulance waits.

 

At least, that’s how you think it happened. Everything’s a haze through the pain, and all that you can really remember is the long nose and strong grip and the leaf that you half-heartedly chewed.

 

And when you’re in the hospital with your left calf in a cast after surgery, you’re doped up on what your second-youngest brother, Dave, says is morphine and it’s actually kind of nice. It’s not stopping the pain, but it’s muting it. Kind of making it more distant, you guess. You’re given a little button to press to pump you up with more whenever you need it, but not in excess of one dose every five minutes. To be quite frank, though, you push that button at least every sixty seconds.

 

Your dad offers to stay with you on the first night, but you tell him to go home and look after your brothers. He probably won’t manage it. Maybe they’ll retrieve the tree that fell on your leg, though. And chop it up into little pieces! And burn it! Frankly, it had it coming.

 

And then you lie there in the bed for a while, the IVs in your elbows itching, and sweet baby Jesus is that a catheter?

 

You’re probably in here for a while, then.

 

Thank God that someone left a puzzle book for you.

 

You’re wheeled out of the intensive care unit the next day, and you find yourself on the mostly empty children’s ward instead of the adult ward that probably smells like old people and shit. There are colourful pictures of giraffes and sea lions and other such whimsical, non-predatory animals all over the walls in a simple cartoon style.

 

Nate, Lee, and Thompson visit you the next day, bringing your MP3 player, your phone, and some fast food that probably isn’t allowed. But screw what you’re allowed! You just broke your leg, and the pain is just itching in your mind.

 

Lee tells you that Robbie and Tambry were going to come with them, but something came up. You know that Robbie’s just scared of hospitals, though, and you think that you say that between mouthfuls of chicken nuggets. They laugh, and you make them promise not to tell before remembering that they kind of already probably knew that.

 

And time goes on like that, for a week or so. On the second day, the nurse tells you that you have _morphine eyes_ , whatever that is, and moves you onto regular doses of codeine and some other painkillers. The codeine goes down like a bitch, but you’ll be fucked if you ever don’t take your tablets dry. It tastes like sick but hey, anything to stop your leg from feeling like it’s on fire.

 

On the third day, another nurse starts you on getting out of bed and pushing yourself around in a wheelchair. On the fourth day, you start your physical therapy so you can get back to using your leg as you normally would. On the fifth day, you puke up the undercooked lasagne the hospital tries to feed you and your dad gets you a chocolate bar instead. On the sixth day, your brain lags. You know that you need to get out of bed and do all of the things that the nurses and doctors want you to do, but instead, you just lie there. Eventually, a nurse sweet talks you into getting into your wheelchair, and if you want to, they’ll push you to physical therapy.

 

On the fourteenth day, you are released from hospital and put on a prescription for your painkillers.

 

On the fifteenth day, you wish that you were still in there.

 

Your family is still loud and full of energy, even when they try to tone it down for you. You find yourself getting migraines and being incapable of watching the mind-numbing TV that you were planning on settling down in front of because Clyde broke it with his slingshot again and generally wanting to escape. You can’t go out with your friends, because it’s November and they’re all in school, and to be honest, those guys are about as rowdy as your brothers sometimes. You can’t drive by yourself because you technically don’t have a license and also your leg is kind of. Still in a cast.

 

The answer comes one glorious day when you are flipping through the contacts on your phone and you see Soos’s name. You tap his name like you are punching a zombie in the gut, but more gently, because this is your _phone_ we’re talking about, and not a hypothetical zombie torso.

 

He picks up after two rings and says something like _“What’s up, Wendy dawg?”_

 

You don’t remember your reply, and Soos probably doesn’t either, but it’s probably along the lines of _Soos, help me, I am trapped in this log cabin because of that one time I broke my leg two weeks ago and I need to get out._

 

And within fifteen minutes Soos has you in the passenger seat of his pickup truck and you wheelchair in the back, and he doesn’t judge you when you just ask to go to the shack. He just nods and asks you if _you want to marathon the sixth season of Monstermon, dawg?_

 

And you know that you definitely grin and say “Hell yes!”

 

-

 

And a few weeks later you go back to school, and a few weeks after that it begins to snow and the twins return; both sets. Stan and Ford and Mabel and Dipper make a tight fit in the house with Soos and his Abuelita, but apparently they fix it by bringing another bed into Stan’s room.

 

You go over regularly, sometimes trudging through snow, sometimes getting a lift with Soos or Stan, and sometimes finding a path of frozen mud through the woods, where the fir tree dryad holds your hand or pushes your wheelchair. You talk on those trips, and you learn each other’s names. _Jela_ , she says her name is, and when she walks you home one evening, you hug your pillow and whisper those two syllables to yourself.

 

But usually, she only walks you _to_ the Shack, and it’s too dark for you to return home safely on foot (or by chair, as the case may be, but you’re using that less and less), so usually Stan or Soos will drive you back.

 

The true highlights are the house and its inhabitants, though. Mabel knits double time to make enough of her sweaters for everyone in the extended Pines family and still manages to make more and more decorations for both Hanukkah and Christmas every day. You insist that they get an artificial tree instead of a real one, and Soos mentions Jalu to Stan’s unending glee for being able to mock you for your first and only crush within your fifteen years and eleven months on this dumb planet.

 

For a while, you can forget your anxieties and the damn pain in your leg, because you’re busy chasing Mabel around the house or discussing science with Ford or watching dumb movies with Dipper. And when your leg pain flares up, well, nobody can judge you for taking two pills instead of the normal dose of one. It’s not your fault that they don’t work that well, so you has to take more than usual to actually let them do their job. _Blame the manufacturers_ , like Stan always said.

 

When a snowdrift comes down and blocks all of you in one evening, you stay over the night. You’ve had a spare set of clothes stashed in the attic for a while, now, and you borrow one of Soos’s old question mark t-shirts in order to sleep on his couch.

 

Then the yelling starts.

 

 You ask Soos what’s up, and he just says that _it’s something that the Mr. Pineses always do_ , and you struggle to understand how those two managed to survive on a boat together.

 

The two are arguing in the kitchen, so it’s easier for you to sneak over, a couple of your nightly codeine pills in your hand, and peer around the doorframe. Ford’s fist is clenched around a nearly-empty glass, his knuckles white and trembling, while Stanley stands over him on the other side of the table in his underwear with a look of pure fury.

 

“You said that you’d stop,” he hisses. “You said that you would stop for the two weeks that we have with the kids. How long did it take for you to break that promise, huh? Five days? Three days? Did you ever even _stop_?”

 

“That’s really none of your business, Stanley,” Ford growls back.

 

“Great!” Stanley shouts suddenly. You flinch back, wincing a little, but also stifling a laugh at the momentary confused look on Ford’s face. “Not only is my brother an alcoholic, but he’s also a fucking _liar_!”

 

Ford grabs Stanley’s wrist with his free hand and makes a shushing sound. “The kids might hear you,” he whispers loudly.

 

Stan twists his arm out of Ford’s grip with a fierce strength. “And they might see you pissed out of your mind! And they’ll think it’s funny, and they’ll think it’s normal-”

 

With a vicious laugh, Stanford downs the remnants of his drink. “We haven’t been normal for years, and the kids are already messed up. You know they are, Stan!” He snatches a bottle from the kitchen table before Stanley can think to grab it and begins to refill his glass. “Will they really give a shit? And it’s not like you haven’t been doing the same thing-”

 

Stanley slaps the glass out of Ford’s hand. The liquid splashes everywhere as the glass shatters to pieces loudly, and you can smell the ridiculously strong alcohol as you duck behind the door. You shove your pills down your throat as Stanley says, in a voice filled with far too many emotions for you to clearly identify, “Not around the kids.”

 

And the next morning you see Ford nursing a headache and a cup of coffee, and Stan glaring at him as he passes the chocolate spread, and the next evening Stan goes to bed early and the twins giggle, because Grunkle Ford is drunk and he’s being silly.

 

-

 

It continues like this.

 

The kids go home, Stan and Ford go back on their boat with an abundant amount of smiles, and you return to school. You usually walk with a cane now, and it’s pretty rad, if you do say so yourself. Your dad carved the main stick out of the tree that crushed your leg, Mabel made the dragon handle during her metalworking class at high school, and Dipper and Ford found an alien adhesive to coat it all in lightly so it wouldn’t break apart.

 

Stan gave you lessons in looking like a boss while walking with it.

 

School is kind of a pain in the ass. And also the leg, but that’s kind of normal now. You can go to the nurse’s office if you need your meds, and you do go there every so often so that you don’t look like you’re waltzing through life without your painkillers and therefore getting your prescription taken away, but to be honest, the nurse doesn’t give you enough, so you take more. Basic painkillers don’t work for your headaches anymore, and since your codeine is apparently stronger, you pop a few of those instead of just the ones from the nurse’s office. You save those for basic leg pain.

 

You have a system now. There’s the basic pain that you deal with daily. That’s manageable. Then there’s the pain where it kind of feels really bad, and that’s when you get a pill from the nurse and maybe one of your own. Then there’s the mild headache, and that takes another pill, but the worst are the stabbing pains under your nails. They feel like very mild torture from an evil mastermind and like the worst kind of splinters and that’s when you take several of your pills because they make everything go away and they make you feel alright.

 

Your friends notice when you’ve stopped the worst ones, because you’re kind of distant and giggly and talkative, but you can make them laugh when you’re like that, and that’s all that you care about then.

 

Sometimes, when you visit Jela, she keeps you away from the younger dryads. You don’t question it, because that means that she takes you on walks through the forest together while holding your hand, just the two of you, and the little faeries that sometimes dart around. Her yellow-toothed smile is like rays of sun through the leaves or something, and sometimes she cuddles you while you both sit on a tree stump and you can usually forget about your headaches and stuff.

 

And it continues like that for a few months. You keep on getting your codeine from the pharmacist, and you keep on taking more because apparently you can build up a tolerance to that shit, but it keeps you happy and it keeps your headaches away, so you can’t really get mad or anything. And it continues like that for more months, until the twins and their Grunkles are back again.

 

And Stanley has them all sit around the kitchen table, and he explains that Ford is struggling with alcoholism and that he has decided to quit this summer as Ford looks away, his arms folded and his brows furrowed. You can smell the guilt off of him. Actually, you can smell cheap beer. Stan must be weaning him off slowly.

 

You stick around quite a bit as Ford goes through withdrawal, being carefully watched by Stanley. You tell your dad that a friend needs your help, but he’s not listening. He knows that the twins are back and that he won’t see much of you anyway, but the twins take kind of a backseat this summer. They go out sometimes, looking for monsters or meeting up with friends, but they are just as often hovering around Stan and Ford’s room, conflicted over whether or not to go in and try to comfort their old and broken Great-Uncle Ford.

 

Sometimes, Stan shoots you suspicious looks. If you hadn’t been working for him since before you started getting acne, then you probably wouldn’t recognise the subtle expression, but it’s there. You don’t know what he’s got to be all high and mighty, _I know what you’re doing but I can’t tell you to not do it because I shouldn’t really know and I might be wrong and also I’m kind of really busy right now_ , but he is, and it’s kind of pissing you off.

 

And after most of the summer, Stan apparently thinks that he can let Ford out of his sight, because he lets you take him and the rest of the family go to the store for food and stuff while he takes a long nap. And apparently, you don’t keep a good enough eye on Ford, because in between convincing Mabel that _we don’t need all of that edible glitter, because those tubs are flipping expensive_ , and that _no, Dipper, that’s not the Lefty robot reborn because you’ve seen that person’s other side before_ , Ford has apparently been honing his shoplifting prowess.

 

And yeah, you probably shouldn’t have let him out of your sight.

 

_(you probably shouldn’t have taken several codeine pills that morning)_

 

But the next day when you wave goodbye to Jela at the edge of the woods and knock on the door, Stan opens it and greets you with the stoniest glare before grabbing you by the collar and dragging you in.

 

He growls something like, _did you buy it for him?_ and apparently the look of horror on your face is a confession of guilt in the eyes of Stanley Pines, because he drops you.

 

You stagger onto the floor, and apparently Dipper catches you, and he says something like, _Grunkle Ford relapsed_ , even though it’s quite fucking clear, thank you Dipper.

 

He blinks and steps back, holding his hands up to about the level of his face, making placating gestures, and you realise that you might have said that out loud. Dipper nods, and you realise that you said that out loud too.

 

You walk into the living room, kicking off your boots so that you don’t trail mud everywhere. You drag your feet as you begin to smell vomit and carpet cleaner, but you force yourself to peer in to see Ford slouched against the dinosaur skull, a bucket between his legs. You approach him slowly, because the room is otherwise empty and you’ve seen the guy when he’s stressed. But when he looks up, his eyes don’t seem fierce, or paranoid, or scared. He just looks very, very tired.

 

You wave, as if to say _hey_. He forces a smile in return; like he’s saying _hi_ , and you settle down next to him. And for some reason, even though you’re kind of in a fog right now, you can somehow remember the conversation almost word-for-word.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, staring into the bucket of his own sick. It smells even worse up close, but still, you’re kind of not entirely there, so it doesn’t bother you. You make a questioning grunt noise, and Ford looks to you with those brown eyes. For a second, you think of how much he resembles Dipper after pulling several all-nighters, but a lot more wrinkled. Then you banish that thought from your mind. It’ll come back though, always when you least expect it. Ford continues. “For, uh, getting drunk after you took me to the supermarket.”

 

“Was the trip that bad?” you ask, grinning.

 

Ford doesn’t smile. Well, he tries, but instead he frowns even more. “It’s just that the physical withdrawal was mostly done. I didn’t feel the headache as badly, I didn’t feel the bugs crawling under my skin, I didn’t feel-”

 

“Like there are splinters under your nails,” says Wendy quietly, “and you missed feeling like, I dunno, like you’re floating down a river, and you can’t feel the undercurrent, and you’re not scared of drowning.”

 

“Well, that language is a lot more flowery than I would have-” Ford vomits into his bucket. It’s mostly just stomach acid and bile, Wendy notes as she watches absently. “-used,” Ford continues, “but I suppose that it’s as accurate as anything. Wait-”

 

And he looks like he wants to say more, but you cut him off. “It’s just painkillers. They’re… It’s fine. I’m not…”

 

Like you.

 

Hurting myself.

 

 _Addicted_.

 

And then suddenly you feel the need to throw up, because _fuck_ , how have you been ignoring this? And why does it feel so awful? And why do you _care_?

 

You reach into your jeans pocket, finger scrabbling for the codeine sheet you keep on you, but crap, it’s in your bag today, and you dropped your bag in the gift shop, and _shit shit shit_ -

 

Ford laughs, bringing you back down to earth, where the dinosaur’s skeletal nose is digging into your back and Ford, the science guy that you discuss chemical compounds with, is sitting by your side against the sofa, smelling of puke and booze, and laughing bitterly.

 

“Yeah, that’s how I reacted,” he says. His eyes look damp. Eventually, a tear falls. His face is blotchy, both too red and too pale, and as your vision blurs you feel as if your face is doing the same. And then you’re both crying, and hugging too, you suppose, and it’s terrifying and all you can think of is the word _addict_ , over and over in your mind like some siren warning any nearby telepaths of what you, of what you both are.

 

And you barely thought of your cravings before, but now they’re in full force and you kind of want to see how much codeine it would take-

 

“-To die,” Ford says, and you’re not even surprised that you said that out loud, and your hair is in his gross mouth and part of your shirt is probably dipped in vomit but you’re too busy crying to care. Huge, mournful howls, because you’ve just realised, you’ve just considered how fundamental codeine has become to your being and you look at Ford, and you’re afraid that this is who you will become.

 

At some point, Stan ends up there, and you’re left clutching him as Ford goes to take a shower or something, and he pats your head and says comforting-sounding words that aren’t that comforting. _I know, I’ve been there, it’s okay_ -

 

And you think that you tell him to shut up, old man, because he chuckles and when Ford returns back downstairs, with a fresh turtleneck and damp hair, Stan walks you to the bathroom and pats your head before going to his brother, probably, and leaving you to shower alone.

 

-

 

And it begins to slow down. You cut down on your pills, or you try. Withdrawal is a bitch, and you can never keep at it for longer than a day before your family gets worried. Because somehow, they’ve gotten used to a mellow, chilled Wendy all of the time. It’s… Kind of your fault. But you can’t stop thinking that _maybe_ it was worth it.

 

Maybe it’s worth destroying your liver slowly, because Stan told you that’s what it does, maybe it’s worth not eating and barely drinking, maybe it’s worth taking every night out with your friends getting drunk as a gamble with your life, maybe it’s worth it to not be scared or anxious anymore, and to be able to smile when people greet you. Maybe. Maybe.

 

Maybe it’s better to live with senses too vivid to process, with feeling each sensation like a sharp rock thrown from close quarters hitting your knuckles. Maybe it’s better to suddenly scream in anger, because you just can’t cope anymore. Maybe it’s better to go back to the Wendy that you forgot under layers of prescription medication.

 

Stan and Ford don’t leave on their boat for a while. They stick around, and Soos goes to visit Melody in Portland, and Stan runs the shack again for a bit.

 

And one day, you walk through the woods, holding Jela’s hand, and you tell her your plan. She smiles and hugs you, and she tells you that she’s proud. Your dad thinks that you’re staying at a friend’s house. It’s okay. You were never going to tell him, really.

 

And she watches you walk to the Shack’s porch, and waves when you catch her eye just before you knock, and when Stanley opens the door, he hides his smile and lets you in.

 

And you tell him, _I want to quit. Please, help me_ , or something along those lines, and you hold out every sheet of codeine that you could find.

 

He takes them, he asks if you want to flush them down the toilet or if you want him to do that, and you tell him to knock himself out, metaphorically at least.

 

As Stan does that, Ford approaches and takes your hand with his own, large, trembling one. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then closes it and shakes his head. He squeezes your hand, and you squeeze back, weaker.

 

You tell him that you are scared, and he responds with a comforting, regretful smile, and he hugs you. He smells like coffee and chocolate and cinnamon. You don’t know what you smell like. Probably like sweat and men’s shampoo.

 

And Stan walks back into the room, and they hold your hands as you wait out the withdrawal; as you sob with every stabbing and crawling pain.

 

And eventually, you come out the other side. Not better, not worse, just different. You are tired, and you still feel kind of tainted, but every sense is more acute, every moment more vivid. And to be honest, all you want to do right now is go to sleep for a little while.

 

-

 

This is how it ends.

 

Well, it’s not _actually_ how it ends, but here is how you continue.

 

You graduate high school. You’re not sure how, and you don’t remember half the syllabus, but you aced your science exams. You weren’t the best overall, but still, you did pretty great considering the circumstances.

 

Stanley, after a few months, knocks on your house door. Your dad opens it, and Stan gives him a long talk on how to recognise the symptoms of depression and anxiety in his kid. So now you’re in therapy and on meds. Better meds. Ones that won’t ruin your life, but rather, enhance it.

 

You don’t keep count of the days since you last got high, and that is fucking _weird_ to think. It was never really feeling _high_ , just… Feeling less. Or more. You’re never really certain, and you don’t really want to find out. Ford counts the days since his last drink. He says that it helps. That it’s like building up a high score in an arcade game. You can’t really be bothered with counting. You just know that you’re further away from it than you used to be, and that’s gotta mean something.

 

The twins arrive each summer. You greet them with a grin and a wave, and you don’t tell them about the codeine. They don’t need to know. Maybe someday, but you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it. Instead, you play. You run through the forest, exploring and laughing and you introduce the twins to Jela properly. They laugh when you blush, but Jela puts her arm around your shoulders, so frankly, you’re the real winner.

 

You still keep the cane in your hand. It’s useful, and it hasn’t broken or even gotten scratched. It helps you when your leg hurts, and it also looks badass as fuck. You’re growing too tall for it though. Mabel offers to make you a swordcane. You beam like a kid in a candy shop. Jela shakes her head.

 

And well, you’re not the same person that you were. But you still hang out with Ford, marathon Monstermon with Soos and Dipper, prank Stan with Mabel. You close your eyes contentedly. You’re doing okay.

 

Even if your leg still hurts like a bitch.


End file.
